Advancing the MSK health of the nation through research, education and innovation

Arash Angadji

Orthopaedic Research UK (ORUK) is a small charity, but with a big ambition to advance orthopaedic and musculoskeletal (MSK) knowledge, and champion the needs of a sector that is all too often starved of investment. We are one of the most significant funders of orthopaedic and MSK research in the UK. Since 2004, we have invested almost £12 million on projects that expand knowledge, improved patient outcomes and pioneered new forms of diagnosis and treatment. Every year we run about 80 educational and training courses. We have also been successful at unlocking funding for research and training from both the public and private sector.

We can only make a significant contribution by working with others. We co-fund fellowship programmes, including two fellowships with the BOA, and collaborate with a wide range of partners, from academic institutions to charities and the private sector. It is only by mobilising the whole MSK community that we can hope to address the poor MSK health of the nation.

In the spirit of our founder Ronald Furlong – who combined a highly successful career as an orthopaedic surgeon with an equally successful career as an entrepreneur – we are the first MSK charity to actively support start-ups and entrepreneurs. With the Ronald Furlong Fund for Start-ups and the recently announced Grand Challenge Award, co-funded by the British Hip Society, our aim is to accelerate the roll-out of innovative ideas. We are also part of the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme.

The sheer scale of the MSK challenges we face as a society has encouraged us to broaden our focus beyond surgery to include education and research into the (non-surgical) management of MSK conditions. Our partnership with ESCAPE-pain – the award-winning group rehabilitation programme for people with chronic joint pain – opens-up new modes of care within a non-healthcare setting such as community and leisure centres.

Over the past 12 months, we have increased our policy work, targeting unmet needs within MSK health. In November, we will be hosting our second AI in Orthopaedics conference. Last year’s event, hosted by the Royal College of Surgeons of England, was the first national conference dedicated to the role of AI and Big Data within orthopaedics. It provided an important opportunity to highlight barriers impeding the application of AI, including access to high-quality data. We have subsequently secured the commitment of Microsoft to fund an AI training programme for surgeons and allied health professions (AHPs), and that of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) to highlight the importance of AI research for MSK health in its Invention for Innovation (i4i) programme. Our partnership with Versus Arthritis, focusing on the application of AI to MSK, will start accepting applications imminently.

We are also about to launch an MSK health for the workplace programme, in association with the Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Alliance. This will focus on improving the MSK health of the working age population, at a time when more than 2.5 million people are currently unemployed in the UK due to health-related issues, including back and neck pain. The government’s focus on getting people back to work, alongside its long-term aim of increasing the retirement age, demands a serious focus on the MSK health of the working age population. The programme will include research, funding for innovation, policy papers, educational programmes and events.

Poor MSK health is a multi-dimensional, multigenerational problem that has a profound impact on individuals, workplaces and our health system. It is the third-largest area of expenditure for the NHS, and linked to rising levels of obesity, anxiety, isolation and depression. With such a huge societal impact, we must never accept the inevitability of pain, or indeed its cost. We therefore see the purpose of our charity as mobilising the whole MSK community to keep pushing at research boundaries, encouraging innovation and helping to educate the next generation of healthcare professionals. Together we can make a difference.

Dr Arash Angadji joined Orthopaedic Research UK in 2008 and was appointed Chief Executive in 2016. Over the years he has been instrumental in the strategic development and rebranding of the organisation, with a focus on improving governance and expanding the research and education programmes within the charity. Arash has a PhD in Medical Engineering, MBA in Management and is a trustee at the British Orthopaedic Research Society (BORS).